Fleeting moments
by LARRISSA-HAYLIE IS MI
Summary: Snapes thoughts on Harry and his past.


"Potter, Harry."

The name rang out from Minerva's always-half-pursed lips; it echoed against the walls and ceiling in a fading attempt to escape the confines of the Hall. Whispers rose among the students. Was it really he? Harry Potter? _The_ Harry Potter? That skinny, knobbly-kneed, messy-haired kid with a look on his face like he was about to vomit all over the Sorting Hat?

Yes, you fools, of course that's him. What did you expect? Some kind of grinning superhero? Just because he _lived_ . . . it's not like _he_ actually did anything. It was Lily who saved him, it was all Lily, but she died so this scrawny brat gets all the credit instead.

And the silly old hat sank down over those eyes—_Lily's eyes, what are they doing in that awful face?_—and it sat there, and it must have been thinking hard, because it sat and it sat and it kept on sitting, and _what if he's a Squib?_ It would serve him right, for killing Lily—but no, his magic was all too obvious, you could practically _see_ it—like Lily's, Lily's magic had been like that too, but—

"GRYFFINDOR!"

Good, not Slytherin because that would mean he'd be studying and grinning that idiotic grin all over the Common Room and that would be _unbearable_, but this meant he'd turn out like his father, just like his father, although of course he _had_ to, with that face. And he was sitting down now, next to those filthy Weasleys' with their red hair and God, why did they all have to have such _red hair_ because now it was her hair and her eyes, and they were all sitting together so it was like one big _Lily_ come back to haunt him. But thank God the Potter boy didn't have her smile because how ignominious would it be to break down in front of the whole school? But that face, _that face_ and with Lily's eyes it was like James was just brandishing this last, bright green Quidditch trophy in his face for all eternity—

And the boy—_filthy, swaggering, boasting and upside down and Mudblood but no, he hadn't meant it_—the boy looked up at him, and _why the hell had he been talking to Quirrell?_ Was looking up at him and he put his hand to the scar, just boasting, _I lived and she didn't_ but no, the boy was an ignorant fool, he wasn't _clever_ enough to be that cruel.

Calm down now, you've got to be calm and if you react he'll just torture you more so a bit of a glare then go back to your conversation—what were we talking about? Quirrell—traitor, probably, idiot, _of course_—said something, it was about Acromantulas—oh, it was Hagrid - of course it was Hagrid. The giant spiders were there, of course, and their venom would be ever so valuable ("D-d-don't you agree, S-Severus?) But Hagrid wouldn't let them take it, and that was _p-p-perfectly unreasonable_ and God, that stutter was so _fake_, he could be forgiven if it was actually a speech impediment (although that could be easily solved with magic, so maybe not), but _why did he have to_fake_it_? He _must_ be a traitor, why else would he do that? Fake stutters were just the sort of torture device Voldemort might dream up.

But no, he had to calm down, forget about Lily and Quirrell, stuff his face with this food that tasted like ash because there was no point in it tasting good when life itself was so_bitter_. Look up at the ceiling, it was nighttime so there was no filthy daylight intruding and the stars were cold and distant. _Be like the stars, you're not really here, this is just your body but you're floating out in space, far away with no filthy Potter-boys to look at you with those green, green eyes—_

Now it was class with the Gryffindor first-years, and there was that Weasley boy and the Granger girl and there with them was Potter, Potter, but no, forget him now. Draco's here too, and Crabbe and Goyle are brutish thugs but at least they don't have green eyes and perpetually messy black hair.

And now Severus was in his element, teaching, but the Potter boy—well, he _had_ to be confronted and it was _ever_ so delightful that he didn't know any of the answers. But of course, he was as insolent as his father; he had the nerve to suggest the Granger girl and she was struggling to remain seated as her hand stretched its way up—and that would be an interesting experiment, to see if it would ever reach the ceiling. But he hadn't asked the Granger girl, and he didn't want to _hear_ the stupid girl recite her textbook definitions even once; he'd heard about her from the other teachers and they all praised her but she sounded just _dreadful_—anyone who wanted to be noticed who wasn't Lily was an idiot—anyone who just _wasn't Lily_ was an idiot, but the ones who wanted to be noticed were the worst. Getting noticed meant getting hurt, he'd learned that from long experience back in that place that he would have called home if it had been anything but what it was—it wasn't home, it was just where he tried to tune out the pain and the fighting by thinking of Lily—but Lily was gone now, and so was the fighting and it was just him and the memories and _God they hurt_.

Here — now — oh, and that Longbottom boy—practically a Squib and with an extra dose of stupidity, so no wonder he couldn't brew anything. Maybe he should be pitied after what Bella did to his parents but they knew it could happen—oh, God, Lily would hate him for being so insensitive—but Lily hated him anyway, and besides, she was dead now and that had nothing to do with anything anymore.

But Lily was irrelevant, all that mattered was teaching this class and keeping an eye on the boy because for some reason it had made sense when Dumbledore said it, and the old man might be a fool but he was the closest thing to a non-idiot that existed outside of Lily. So he had to kept an eye on the boy, and on Quirrell too because he just wasn't normal, something was terribly wrong with him besides the fakeness of the stutter. There it was. A To-do list. Lists always helped, because they helped keep the semi-relevant memories from intruding on his concentration. Lists were nice. They were like—no, no, don't think about her—stupid Granger girl, she's helping Longbottom, again, so another point from Gryffindor. And five to Slytherin for laughing when he said that. Vindictiveness toward Gryffindors was always rewarded, especially when there was a Potter among them.

It was nice, having this kind of control. He only wished someone clever had been Head of Slytherin during his school days. Then at least one of the teachers would reward quiet cleverness rather than brashness.

Halloween, and the decorations of course weren't as garish as Christmas and Thanksgiving because they were mostly black, which suited him, but then there was that lurid orange that hurt just to _think_ about, let alone look at. The food was still ash, though—it always was—and Quirrell was still just as annoying. It was a relief when the stammering imbecile left.

It wasn't a relief when he came running back in and said—in an unusually stutter-less voice—that there was a troll, and then fainted in the middle of the hall. Well, pretend-fainted, really. Severus had seen enough people pass out to know a fake when he was one, and this was as false as the man's stutter.

Quirrell waited a few minutes after the rest of them had left before getting up—well, the idiocy must be fake too. God, was anything real about him? He was just one falsehood after another—maybe after you peeled them all away, there wouldn't be anything left.

Severus was lurking in the shadows even though he knew his Disillusionment Charm was expertly cast: it was a habit that was hard to break. He always felt as though his beaky nose would somehow manage to push through the enchantment and start floating around apparently on its own, the only visible part of him.

Quirrell didn't see him, of course, and it was easy enough to follow his scuffing footsteps up the third floor and over to—ah, it was _that_ corridor.

But of course. Quirrell didn't seem like a Death Eater, so that made him the perfect choice to retrieve the Philosopher's Stone for the Dark Lord. But he could easily be taken out of commission, and Dumbledore would, as always, take the blame. It was simply a matter of scaring Quirrell into rushing the matter and getting himself eaten, then looking on while Dumbledore apologized profusely for failing to protect the school from monsters.

It should be a very pleasant undertaking.

The year was over and that was a very good thing, because it meant two completely Potter-free months. For eight entire weeks, he would be free of that arrogant, cheeky face with its green, green eyes that haunted him endlessly. One might have thought that he would be free from that face at night, because he was an Occlumens and not prone to nightmares, but the idiot boy was up at all hours, chasing real or imaginary monsters all over the goddamned castle. And now, of course, he'd had to go and _save the day_, so everyone was talking about him even more than usual — _Potter, Potter Potter_, ceaselessly — and he was too _weak_, he couldn't keep his gaze or his mind away from those green eyes for more than a few minutes.

Well, two good things had come of the whole business — first, Quirrell was dead, and second, thanks to the Potter boy and his ridiculous Granger friend, Gryffindor had last place and the Great Hall was decked out in green and silver. Severus allowed himself a smirk as he looked at the faces of all the Gryffindors when they walked in to see the Slytherin colors. Maybe, after all, they'd had some faith that Dumbledore would let them win just because of the stupid boy — where was he, anyway?

Severus took a serving of the nearest thing on the table and ate it without tasting, engaging absently in mindless conversations with his colleagues. His eyes were on the ceiling, the least hideous part of the room, counting the stars even though he already knew how many there were because he had sat with _her_ one night — before _it_ happened, when she could still stand the sight of him — one end-of-the-year feast, and counted every star in the sky, and nothing had changed since then except that _she_ was gone and that horrid boy was the only thing left except the words _Lots of love_ and a signature, stolen, never meant for him.

Ah, that would be him now; you always knew he was coming when the mutters started up. And yes, there he was, his father's vomitous face with Lily's eyes trapped inside, where they were never meant to be. And that stupid grin on his face, the _I-Just-Won-a-Quidditch-Match-Therefore-Everyone-Loves-Me_ grin, with his hair sticking up all over the place as he swaggered over to his seat. Severus glared at the boy and froze, as always, the moment he caught the glint of green through those awful glasses.

The clink of a fork on a wineglass and the muttering stopped, _oh thank God for quiet_, but then Dumbledore started talking and _Christ why does someone always have to break the silence?_ He was talking about House Points — _oh bloody__of course, he just has__to do this to me, doesn't he?_ Because it was obvious, what the old man was planning, and _stop cheering Slytherin he's about to take it all away_ there they went, the first fifty, and another fifty, _of course it had to be Weasley and Granger, always the favoritist, Dumbledore_ — and he gave Potter sixty, _oh Merlin now we're tied, where does the tiebreaker come from?_ But the old man was stalling, saying everything but the name and the number, and finally he ran out of things to say and — _Neville Longbottom — oh, honestly, did he absolutely have to give the moron points? And of course he had to save him for last, too, so that he was the one to win it for them_ — and Dumbledore waved his wand and the banners went all red and gold. And there Potter and his friends were laughing and cheering, and it was hideous to see that face so happy, but the boy looked up at the staff table and _just for a moment — those eyes, oh God oh Merlin why does he do this to me?_ A little bit more of Severus shrivelled up and forgot.


End file.
